Researchers from Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan have successfully treated the skin diseases epidermolytic ichthyosis (EI) and ichthyosis with confetti (IWC) by transplanting genetically healthy skin to inflamed areas. Transplanting healthy skin to inflamed areas has been used as a treatment option for severe burn injuries. They applied this technique from a common disease to rare diseases. Their research could pave the way for a new and effective treatment strategy for these challenging skin disorders. The study was published in the British Journal of Dermatology.  EI and IWC are rare genetic skin disorders caused by mutations in one of the two genes ...

Opioid giant Mallinckrodt, selling more than Purdue Pharma in the US, was forced by the courts to publish more than 1.3 million internal documents. In The BMJ today, researchers Sergio Sismondo and Maud Bernisson sift through nearly 900 contracts which together reveal a carefully coordinated effort to shape medical attitudes toward pain medicine. Pharmaceutical companies have a long history of managing physician and public opinion, explain the authors. For example, by recruiting physicians to serve as influencers, planting articles in scientific journals, coordinating conference presentations, and developing continuing medical education (CME) courses. Amid surging ...

Cambridge scientists have grown ‘mini-guts’ in the lab to help understand Crohn’s disease, showing that ‘switches’ that modify DNA in gut cells play an important role in the disease and how it presents in patients. The researchers say these mini-guts could in future be used to identify the best treatment for an individual patient, allowing for more precise and personalised treatments. Crohn’s disease is a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). It is a life-long condition characterised by inflammation of the digestive tract that affects around one in 350 people in the UK, with one in four presenting before the age of 18. Even at its mildest, it ...

The genetic disease Huntington’s not only affects nerve cells in the brain but also has widespread effects on microscopic blood vessels according to research. These changes to the vasculature were also observed in the pre-symptomatic stages of the disease, demonstrating the potential for this research for predicting brain health and evaluating the beneficial effects of lifestyle changes or treatments. Huntington’s disease is an inherited genetic condition leading to dementia, with a progressive decline in a person’s movement, memory, and cognition. There is currently no ...

NEWPORT NEWS – The U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility is moving forward on a project to gain new insight into the interactions of electrons. The MOLLER experiment will make an extremely precise measurement of the electron’s force field to learn about specific and rare interactions with other subatomic particles. On May 28, the experiment received approvals of both Critical Decision 2 and Critical Decision 3 from the DOE. The MOLLER research program was established at Jefferson Lab as a DOE Major Item of Equipment (MIE) project to build the equipment required to support the experiment. These ...

PHILADELPHIA (June 10, 2024) – Researchers and patient advocates from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, Smell and Taste Association of North America (STANA), and Thomas Jefferson University came together during the COVID-19 pandemic to incorporate patient voices in efforts to prioritize research areas focused on improving care for people with smell and taste disorders. To this end, in 2022 these collaborators conducted a survey and listening sessions with patients, caregivers, and family members affected by impaired smell or taste. They asked about their individual perceptions of the effectiveness of treatments, among other topics. Using an online questionnaire, ...

Research suggests that males and females differ in their experience of pain, but up until now, no one knew why. In a recent study published in BRAIN, University of Arizona Health Sciences researchers became the first to identify functional sex differences in nociceptors, the specialized nerve cells that produce pain. The findings support the implementation of a precision medicine-based approach that considers patient sex as fundamental to the choice of treatment for managing pain. “Conceptually, this paper is a big advance in our ...

Astronomers have used new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the retired SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) as well as archival data from other missions to revisit one of the strangest binary star systems in our galaxy – 40 years after it burst onto the scene as a bright and long-lived nova. A nova is a star that suddenly increases its brightness tremendously and then fades away to its former obscurity, usually in a few months or years. Between April and September 1975, the binary system HM Sagittae (HM Sge) grew 250 times brighter. Even more unusual, it did not rapidly fade away as novae commonly do, but has ...

Peering deeply into the cosmos, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is giving scientists their first detailed glimpse of supernovae from a time when our universe was just a small fraction of its current age. A team using Webb data has identified 10 times more supernovae in the early universe than were previously known. A few of the newfound exploding stars are the most distant examples of their type, including those used to measure the universe's expansion rate. "Webb is a supernova ...

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) presents a roundup of four research articles recently published across its six esteemed journals. Widely recognized for fostering innovation and advancing ecological knowledge, ESA’s journals consistently feature illuminating and impactful studies. This compilation of papers explores how wolf reintroduction affects other carnivores, how drought and grazing snails together drive salt marsh productivity, the key to an invasive fish’s success and the plight of backyard trees, ...

In the heart-pounding action scenes of your favorite blockbuster, it's not always the A-list actor taking the risks but the unsung heroes—stunt performers—who bring those breathtaking moments to life. However, behind the glamour lies a grim reality: the reluctance of these daredevils to report head trauma, fearing it could jeopardize their careers. In the recently released blockbuster, “The Fall Guy,” audiences get a behind-the-scenes look at what stunt professionals go through to create those most thrilling moments, and although this film celebrates these skilled professionals, it does not highlight the impact the stunts can have on their health. Ohio ...

Income inequality and carbon dioxide emissions for high-income nations such as the United States, Denmark and Canada are intrinsically linked – but a new study from Drexel University has taken a deeper look at the connection and found this relationship is less fixed, can change over time, and differ across emission components. The findings could help countries set a course toward reducing emissions of the harmful greenhouse gas and alleviating domestic income inequality at the same time. The ...

Jinghui Yuan, an R&D staff member in the Applied Research for Mobility Systems group at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elevated to a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE. Senior member status is the highest grade of IEEE and requires extensive experience that reflects professional accomplishments. Only 10% of IEEE’s more than 450,000 members achieve this level. As a transportation engineer in the Buildings and Transportation Science Division, Yuan’s research focuses on intelligent transportation systems, crash risk prediction, big data analytics, deep learning, traffic simulation and ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 10 June 2024     Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet      @Annalsofim     Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.     ----------------------------     1. ...

Feeling Rough After Your COVID Shot? Congrats, It’s Working!   Headache, chills, tiredness may be evidence of a supercharged defense, according to UCSF-led study.  Fewer than 1 in 4 people in the United States have received last year’s updated COVID-19 vaccine, despite a death toll of more than 23,000 Americans this year.    One of the most common reasons for bypassing the COVID vaccine is concern about side effects like tiredness, muscle and joint pain, chills, headache, fever, nausea and feeling generally unwell. But a new study, led by UC San Francisco, has found that the symptoms indicate a robust immune response that is likely to ...

“The study examined the impact of depressive symptoms, antidepressant use, and epigenetic age acceleration on all-cause mortality in postmenopausal women.” BUFFALO, NY- June 10, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 10, entitled, “Relationships of depression and antidepressant use with epigenetic age acceleration and all-cause mortality among postmenopausal women.” In this new study, researchers May A. Beydoun, Hind A. Beydoun, Jason Ashe, Michael F. Georgescu, Steve Horvath, Ake Lu, Anthony S. Zannas, ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — If a material absorbs light, it will heat up. That heat must go somewhere, and the ability to control where and how much heat is emitted can protect or even hide such devices as satellites. An international team of researchers, including those from Penn State, has developed a novel method for controlling this thermal emission, with what they called promising implications for thermal management and thermal camouflage technologies. The team published their work on June 7 in the print edition of Science. Led by researchers at The University of Manchester’s National Graphene Institute ...

The University of Texas at Arlington is honoring two faculty for their outstanding contributions to scholarship with the Distinguished Record of Research or Creativity Award. Sam W. Haynes, professor of history, and Jaehoon Yu, professor of physics, are the 2024 recipients of the award, which recognizes faculty who have achieved a distinguished record of scholarship over an extended period. “Jae and Sam have each been at UTA for more than 20 years, and they have each truly made an impact in the lives of the students we prepare for future careers,” said Kate C. Miller, vice president of research and innovation. "In addition, their contributions ...

As of 2024, 24 states including Virginia and Maryland, and DC have legalized the adult recreational use of cannabis. As laws change, citizens' perceptions of the drug and reasons for using the drug have also shifted. In 2020, 34.5% of adults aged 18-25 reported using cannabis in the previous 12 months, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Health experts seek to better understand the broader implications of legalizations and individuals’ motivations and attitudes related to cannabis use.  New ...

Researchers worldwide can now create highly realistic brain cortical organoids — essentially miniature artificial brains with functioning neural networks — thanks to a proprietary protocol released this month by researchers at the University of California San Diego. The new technique, published in Nature Protocols, paves the way for scientists to perform more advanced research regarding autism, schizophrenia and other neurological disorders in which the brain’s structure is usually typical, but electrical activity is altered. That’s according to Alysson Muotri, Ph.D., corresponding author and ...

It may seem like the Sun is stationary while the planets in its orbit are moving, but the Sun is actually orbiting around the Milky Way galaxy at an impressive rate of about 220 kilometers per second — almost half a million miles per hour. As fast as that may seem, when a faint red star was discovered crossing the sky at a noticeably quick pace, scientists took notice. Thanks to the efforts of a citizen science project called Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 and a team of astronomers from around the country, a rare hypervelocity ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Imagine a portable 3D printer you could hold in the palm of your hand. The tiny device could enable a user to rapidly create customized, low-cost objects on the go, like a fastener to repair a wobbly bicycle wheel or a component for a critical medical operation. Researchers from MIT and the University of Texas at Austin took a major step toward making this idea a reality by demonstrating the first chip-based 3D printer. Their proof-of-concept device consists of a single, millimeter-scale photonic ...

Returning end-of-life products to as-new condition is called remanufacturing and can be an essential element in a circular economy. But for more industrial companies to take an interest in it, remanufacturing needs to be economically viable. In a doctoral thesis from Linköping University, Johan Vogt Duberg has investigated how this can be accomplished. “It’s possible to take advantage of increased environmental awareness to gain economic benefits. With remanufacturing, the costs of raw materials can be reduced, new customer groups found and ...

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications was recently awarded $4.9 million of supplemental funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) for Delta and an additional $4.9 million for DeltaAI to expand the potential capabilities of the soon-to-launch system by nearly 50 percent. NCSA originally received nearly $25 million from NSF in 2023 to deploy and operate DeltaAI, an advanced computing and data resource that will be a companion system to Delta. DeltaAI will triple NCSA’s AI-focused computing capacity and ...

A discovery made by scientists at King’s College London could speed up efforts to produce new antibiotics in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. In a paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, scientists from the Department of Chemistry share a new, rapid method for making cyclic peptides – an important class of antibiotic molecules. The approach takes minutes rather than the hours or days it normally takes, helping overcome a major challenge in antibiotic development. Lead author Dr Sarah Barry, from the Department of Chemistry at King’s College London, ...